EURIPIDES
Mourn for their bitter heritage, a home
Which waits the coming of a happy king	190
But cannot give him welcome.
Trouble was born forever in their sky
When Pelops tricked a car
Of toppling horses out of the race for a bride.
The Third Maiden
Because of a golden lamb which long ago	195
Beckoned contesting men,
Mischief began to undermine your house.
The Fourth Maiden
Vengeance has made its unappeased way
With every dart of death	200
And visited your family one by one.
And now with eager hand
Fate is pursuing you. Your turn has come.
Iphigenia
Oh bitter my beginning in the womb
Of her who bore me, from the very night
When she conceived! Appointed by the Fates	205
To suffer in this world, I was a child
Accursed. Yet how she cherished me, her first-born,
And thrilled that I, of all the girls of Argos,	210
Should be a bride upon the way to Troy!
What had she borne me for and loved me for?—
To be destroyed by my own father's hand,
To come, behind the horses of delight,	215
Not to Achilles—but to grief and horror!
And now beside this melancholy sea
I live my days—lonely, no love, no friends,
Wife of no man and mother of no child.	220
I know no home. I sing no Argive song
With Argive women to the Queen of Heaven.
I weave upon the whirring loom no tale
Of Pallas routing Titans. . . . Oh, instead,
380